The Kaufmann Mercantile Guide: by Jessica Hundley, Alexandra Redgrave

The Kaufmann Mercantile Guide:

by Jessica Hundley and Alexandra Redgrave

Modern living isn't easy. It often requires some know-how our parents didn't pass on, or a special tool. Happily, Kaufmann Mercantile has both, and in this comprehensive field guide, share their expertise on a huge range of topics, from frying an egg, tying a tie, or brewing coffee to things the inner utilitarian in all of us aspires to do, like splitting wood, building a fire, growing our own food, or making our own soap. Forty-eight how-tos are organized into five sections: Kitchen, Outdoors, Home, Garden, and Grooming. Written in clear detail and extensively illustrated,The Kaufmann Mercantile Guide teaches us what we ought to know how to do, as well as what we d like to. Supplemental sidebars feature the best tool for the job, whether a dibber for planting, the best rawhide- and-ash snowshoes, or flammable smoking bags'for making authentic BBQ. This book is a must-have reference tool for living well in the twenty-first century.

Includes 150 newly drawn illustrations.

Includes forty-eight step-by-step how-tos for mastering common tasks, like mending a hem, shaving, or stocking a pantry, or more adventurous activities, like sabering a champagne bottle, starting a vegetable garden, or fording a stream.

Sidebars highlight thirty Tools of the Trade to get the job done right.

Reviewed by MurderByDeath on

5 of 5 stars

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This was a total impulse buy back in August - the power of the cash-register display!  Plus, I'm a sucker for learning a new skill, especially the old ones that have fallen by the wayside in favour of modern conveniences.   

This book was exactly what I was hoping for:  Short, 1-2 pages explaining how to do a variety of tasks around the home.  It's broken up into sections for the Kitchen, Outdoors, Home, Gardening and Grooming.  Some of it was obvious for me; as a gardener, there wasn't much in the Gardening section I didn't already know and as a born and bred Floridian, I already knew how to shuck an oyster, but on the flip side, I didn't have a clue about how to walk on snow or how to read the sky to find North (or South).  Now I do.   

Most everything in the book is practical and I'll be referring back to it over the years, although there are instructions for how to saber a Champagne bottle; a skill I'm going to choose to keep theoretical.  

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 7 October, 2015: Finished reading
  • 7 October, 2015: Reviewed